People have desired home automation for years. The ability to remotely control electrical fixtures, appliances, and electronics remotely or through a central location has often seemed like it was just a few years away. However, the revolutionary automated home of the future has remained illusive. The few products that have been made available are often so expensive that they are typically used only by the wealthy and in prototype homes of the future. Many automation products also lack the necessary functionality to enable a truly automated home.
Even a decade ago, creating an automated home usually meant that the necessary wiring and infrastructure had to be installed during a home or building's construction. The wiring alone could cost tens of thousands of dollars. The field of home automation has been incongruent, with differing products unable to affectively communicate. These incompatibilities have further limited the potential of creating interconnected, remotely controlled homes and buildings.
In the last several years a wireless infrastructure has been developed. Computers having wireless connections are now ubiquitous. Homes and buildings no longer need to have expensive networking cables installed to enable computers to communicate over the Internet. Standards such as IEEE 802.11b have been set which allow the computers to communicate with the Internet and with each other.
However, the wireless infrastructure developed for computers has drawbacks for home automation. The transmitters and receivers are expensive and have a limited range. Homes and buildings can have dead spots where signals have too little power to be received. Wireless devices connected using the 802.11b standard typically can only communicate with a central hub. They usually cannot intercommunicate.
Embedding a radio frequency (RF) or wireless device such as an 802.11b transceiver into typical residential or commercial structures, such as a wall switch junction box, has a number of technical challenges. Installation practices and materials vary widely. One of the worst environments is a metal junction box which is used in older homes and some new construction of residential and commercial buildings.